Maebius Musing

Recently, I was told about a potential opening at a nearby military-type base, for an IT support tech. Essentially, what I am doing now at my current job of 10 years, though with a more UNIX bend, while I have more Windows experience, and relatively no experience with Emacs or butterflies.

The pay for this ‘entry level’ position seems to be on-par with my current wages, (and with a 5 year gap of not even a cost-of-living increase here, that’s hardly surprising), and has the additional benefit of being a “government job”. This means much better benefits, potential to promote upwards as time/experience qualifies me, and a decent chance of retirement in 20 years or so, if current social economics stay the same, and the world doesnt suddenly go into a post-hubbard’s-peak implosion.

I am applying, though it is with a huge amount of fear, uncertainty, and doubt.

At the surface, and to everyone I’ve talked to, this is a great opportunity. Go for it, they cry, even if you take a minor pay-cut now, in 2 years you’ll be further ahead than you are at this current place. …and it does sound like a decent job, if I buckle down and brush up on my Unix and re-familiarize myself with Java instead of PHP.

However, I keep coming around to the question of “do I want this?”. I have generally thought in my inner-most worry that I simply do not think I prefer to be in an IT support position “when I grow up”. I can’t put my finger on it, and have written and said over and over in my head how to explain the doubt, but have yet to nail down the feeling in concrete terms. Don’t even try asking “Well what DO you want to be when you grow up?” because I’ve asked that very question over and over again, with little headway towards and answer.

In the interest of brainstorming phrases, proceed with caution below, this could get wordy…

I want to ‘Do something” with my job, and somehow, even at this current place, I dont get that satisfaction. I like the job itself, but every time a mouse or keyboard breaks, I replace it. This can be argued to be “helping” that customer do their job, but doesn’t seem to “fill my soul” in the same way that helping rake the neighbor’s yard does.<

I love computers, and don’t think I would deal well if I had to distance myself from the online world. World of Warcraft is an escape for me, from the drudgery of life, and a way to keep social contact with distant friends. Heck, even this blog is an online way to network for me. But I under that all, I keep thinking the online world is still “virtual”, and it would be even better if I could get involved with groups of people consistently off-line, such as the Open Drum group I recently found. The problem, is all my current outside interests involve camping, drumming, gaming, and other distinctly non-technical situations.

I have said and pondered before that my ideal “job/lifestyle” would be to own a hunk of land, grow things on it, and have either a teashop, or otherwise hold workshops there to teach others about herbs, winderness survival, ecological stuff, painting river rocks, etc.

For those who know what I mean when I say “I want Susan Weed’s land and workshop-meetings”, it fits my mental image of Utopia somewhat, though with a different focus. However, in that regard, I am also honest enough with myself to know that I do not have the business-mind to pull something like that off. I tend to start 10 projects before I finish the first one. If I was to suddenly win the lottery and all bills were paid off, I could see myself getting a teashop and paying people to actually run the place, while I helped be a creative influence in planning events, and helping restock shelves. …but then again, would I keep the interest up in 5 years, or would the novelty of non-computer-support wear off then?

Additionally, there is the matter of my current job. For all I complain about it, it’s not really that bad. Sure the boss is irritating, but aren’t we all at times? Granted, I have no immediate promotion opportunities unless I look outside this department, but that makes me at the “top of the heap” here on the bottom rung of this ladder. I’ve been here longest, I am frequently called upon to help with the tricky things, since I stuck around through the last 10 years worth of changes, and if not the most technical-minded, I know the processes that changed, and how they fit into the current workings of the company better than my co-worker. And I am willing to backup our night-shift operator in emergencies, often with only a few hours notice, unlike some other folks. I know the mainframe print position better than the official mainframe print operator. And because of how this, if I need to take an emergency day off to deal with something unexpected, I can simply walk over to my boss and say “I’ll be back tomorrow” and not feel bad about leaving early. King of the molehill is still a king, right?

In talking to my wife, we both agree that the worst that could happen is I grab a temporary place at McDonalds if needed someday. Heck, when I first moved to New York with nothing but a bag of soot-stained books and some spare clothes, I got hired at my current office within the week. I don’t mind temp-jobs and we can adjust financially without too much strain. Life has a way of helping work out the kinks and moving us all forward.

So, I sit at a tough crossroads here.
On one hand, there is an opportunity before me, which would require a change on my part, and a bit of re-learning to happen if I am hired. On the other hand, there’s the sinking feeling that if I stepped across that bridge, it would burst into flames and send me into the river below.

I can swim, no problem…but is the stick I might be grabbing for this journey tipped with sulpher and flint, or a nice comfy rubber-foot?

I don’t have the answer yet, nor do you. Could this even be the dreaded “Midlife Crisis?!” I doubt that.

I wanted to muse about it here, so there you go.

No Comments »

I found the camera cable, and was able to dump a good backlog of images to a more PC-friendly location (ie: my hard drive and subsequently a CD-rom).

So, here are four fun images to keep you occupied until a real Musing-style post hits the site in a day or two….

First, announced briefly over here, was my wife’s grandfather turned a century old earlier this month, and had a wonderful party with all sorts of relatives, friends, and the like. Here’s the man of honor himself, presiding over the cake & candle ritual. One candle per decade, Awesome!

Next, mentioned in this posting on Happy Camping, is a shot of the new bathroom style. The walls are painted “Happy Camper” green, which fits nicely with the general use of the room. *wink*

Thirdly, there was a strange visitor to our house, who took control of the Wii for the day, and played “the TMNT game” for hours upon hours, giggling the whole time. Isn’t he adorable!

Finally, after years of deliberation, and in order to help out a good friend get some practice with his chosen hobby, I have gotten myself re-inked. This design, which is not 100% completed yet and will get some touch-up work and perhaps a bit of colour, has lots of cool symbolism for me, which may be described in a separate post someday. This solar-inspired design is also going on my djembe head, in either henna, or watercolors, because it is just that cool to me. ….it’s still a bit ouchy though today.

Sorry for blurry pic. The camera was out of batteries, so I had to keep snapping it, hoping to grab the image before it turned itself off.

2 Comments »